The biomechanics consensus is that muscles can only pull. Muscles do not push but use bones to transfer force (which might result in pushing).
Stop me when I say something inaccurate.
The tongue can push.
The tongue has no bones.
The tongue is controlled by muscles.
Muscles can push.
The largest tongue muscle is call Genioglossus. It attaches from the inside bend of the mandible (genial tubercles) to the back of the tongue. As such, when it contracts it pulls the tongue forward. Anything in front of the tongue during this activity will be pushed.
Think of it this way ...
You are standing toward the front of a cave (the mouth) standing next to a bar (the tongue) and holding a rope that is attached to the end of the bar that is deep inside the cave. When you pull on that rope, the bar will move forward, protrude outside the cave, and push aside anything that is in its way. When you have pulled the rope so that the end that was attached to the bar is now next to you, the rest of the bar's length will have pushed its way out of the cave. The bar pushed out of the cave because you pulled on the rope.
To finish our analogy, you are the front of the mandible and the rope is the genioglossus muscle.
Although the tongue stays attached and inside the mouth, by pulling on its back end most of the tongue will extend, and push, out of the mouth. The pull that causes this "push" is still a muscular contraction.
The bar in your analogy is also a muscle. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If I push against a solid bar, it pushes back in the opposite direction.
The mathematics of the Hill muscle model (made over 100 years ago) does not describe this and conventional biomechanics are lacking because of it. They do not take into account tensegrity structures which started being created in the art world at about the same time Sliding Filament Theory was developed (70 years ago). The tensed muscle is a tensegrity structure. Push against the tensed muscle, even in the direction it pulls, and there will be an equal and opposite reaction, the muscle pushes in the opposite direction that it pulls when fully tensed.
When relaxed and compressed it will push in the opposite direction when tensed.
I demonstrate this in two YouTube Shorts here:
Pec Demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PJABMLWOaI8
Tensegrity Structure:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eG86WRdHmY8
Also a peer reviewed article nobody has paid attention to.
Article The Role of Compressive Force in the Movement of the Pectoralis Major
I also made an hour long YouTube here. (Super Saiyan Science).
https://youtu.be/MQBOL08dFJE
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